A catastrophic disaster of mythical proportions reaches Atlantis. After a series of great floods, this island, its civilisation, technology and valuable resources have disappeared under the sea.
Some tragic heroes are divinely commissioned to explore islands to find a suitable refuge for the Atlanteans. As you are a fish out of water victory doesn’t come easy!
Background
Mithril, adamantium, unobtainium and orichalcum. All (precious) metals or materials from legends, myths or fiction. Orichalcum is said to have been a valuable and legendary metal from Atlantis. The actual existence of orichalcum, like the existence of the legendary island of Atlantis, is as yet unproven, but the metal is inextricably linked to the island. Plato’s descriptions of Atlantis also describe the temple of Poseidon. This temple is said to be decorated with ivory, orichalcum and other precious metals.
Orichalcum would have been almost as valuable as gold, according to sources from ancient Greece. The most common assumptions are that orichalcum was fictional or possibly partly based on reality, but any translations and narratives eventually took on a life of their own. According to some sources, it was a strong precious metal found only in the mountains on the island of Atlantis, but possibly it was another name or translation for platinum or a copper-based metal alloy. The latter is not even a crazy theory, as the word orichalcum is derived from the Greek word for mountain copper.
This mythical metal, like Atlantis, captivated science fiction and fantasy. The metal plays a role in many stories – not just stories about Atlantis. Orichalcum was also (partly) the inspiration for other fictional metal alloys such as mithril and adamantium that everyone may be familiar with from Lord of the Rings and Marvel Comics, among others. Orichalcum (and Atlantis) also plays an important role in the board game of the same name. In this game, the metal alloy is an important resource that can help players to victory.
Goal
Orichalcum is a race to victory that takes inspiration, albeit very accessible, of the principles of a 4X game. What is a 4X game? 4X stands for Explore (gradually players start exploring the game world), Expand (by building, players expand their game world), Exploit (during the game, players earn resources and other items); and Exterminate (players start defeating enemies). Civilisation, Twilight Imperium and Eclipse are examples of 4X games. These are lengthy and strategic games. Often, these games last entire (mid)days and players have countless options.
Don’t fear: Orichalcum is not an actual 4X game, but it has similar elements in a family-friendly, manageable and streamlined format. Ideal as a family friendly game or game for lesser experienced friends where you go just a step further than Catan or Risk. Players will place terrain tiles to build up their island, build structures and materials for victory points, collect resources (in the form of armies of Hoplites and the metal orichalcum), elicit favours from divine Titans and defeat mythical monsters such as the Minotaur. Earlier, I called Orichalcum a race: once a player has five victory points, the game ends and that player has immediately won. Players can earn victory points in three simple ways: 1. forge medals made out of orichalcum, 2. build temples and 3. win over titans. To be the fastest to run across the finish line, your island must be a well-oiled machine. And very important: players can not claim victory if there are still unconquered monsters on their island.
Setup
At the beginning of the game, each player receives a personal player board with a unique island. This player board is double-sided and contains a simpler and a more challenging side to choose from. Each player is already given a Hoplite (a distinctive meeple based on the heavily armed and blue-clad infantrymen from the armies of the Ancient Greek city-states), a nugget of the valuable orichalcum and a starting terrain with a barracks and a mine. In the centre of the table, players place a board where action cards are placed. Next to this action board are three closed stacks with the three different terrain tiles (1, 2 or 3 spaces). The corresponding terrain tiles are placed on the action cards and a monster is drawn from the monster bag on each volcano. Many well-known Greek monster make their (re)entrance this way. Think of the mighty Minotaur, Medusa with her stone cold beauty, Siamese triplets Cerberus, the Hydra of Lerna and the king in the land of the blind: the Cyclops.
In addition to the action board, players also place the construction board. On this board, a building tile is drawn from the building bag for each terrain type. Next to the building board are also the stack of victory points and the stack of temples. All these tiles fit perfectly on, in and next to the board and the board clearly shows what these different tiles cost to build during the game for very clear and intuitive understanding of the gameplay. The player to the right of the starting player gets an extra hoplite and players are ready to play.
Gameplay
The board game Orichalcum has a clear and streamlined gameplay flow and each turn players go through a number of phases: 1. take action card, 2. place terrain tiles, 3. perform action (optional) and 4. perform additional action (optional again). If only two players are looking for a suitable replacement for Atlantis, then during this two player game and after these four phases these players must also discard an action card from the action board each turn to ensure that the available actions and tiles alternate sufficiently during the game.
Choosing action cards and placing terrain tiles
First, a player chooses an action card from the action board during their turn. Some cards require players to pay Hoplites and when a player chooses a card, the remaining cards move to the left of the board. The action card depicts one of the available actions and this card also shows the terrain tile that this player must place on their island during their turn.
The chosen tile must be placed if possible and the tile must be placed adjacent to other terrain tiles. During their first turn of the game, players must first place their starting terrain tile on one of the available harbours. Each time a player covers a port with a tile (similarly in the first round), a player gets a bonus (extra Hoplites and/or Orichalcum). Each time a player makes a three or more spaces of the same type of terrain as an area, they lure a Titan. A Titan counts as victory points, but also provides bonuses while performing actions. Players can steal these Titans from each other by placing new territories, but they may only have 1 Titan in front of them unless they have placed a specific structure on their island.
Actions
The chosen action card shows 1 of 4 possible actions. At the end of the turn, players can also ‘pay’ Orichalcum, Hoplites or monsters for an extra action during their turn. For example, players can mine, for this they get 1 nugget of Orichalcum for each mine on their island. Recruiting gives them one Hoplite for each barracks on their island. Besides mining and recruiting, players can also attack and build.
By attacking, players can defeat and capture monsters. Players attack with the dice and defeat a monster if they roll dice equal to or higher than the monster’s value. Skulls on a die count as an instant victory. To deploy additional dice, they need to send Hoplites to the fight. Captured monsters yield bonuses. If players have defeated a monster and if there are still monsters on the island, they may immediately continue their monster massacre. If a player is defeated by the monster, the attack ends immediately, but present Hoplites remain with the monster for a next attempt of assaulting action.
The build action allows players to choose one of the available buildings. Buildings provide bonuses during the rest the game. Players can build new mines or barracks for more resources, as well as statues for cheaper extra actions as well as all other kinds of buildings for you to discover. A structure must be built on the designated terrain, but may not be built next to a monster. By turning in 5 nuggets of Orichalcum, players can forge a medallion and that piece of metal is worth one victory point. Lastly, players can build a temple. In principle, a temple can only be built on four different fields of terrain. When building, an unoccupied volcano counts as a wild terrain.
At the end of the round (after each player has had a turn), the action cards and buildings are replenished and the player with the most Hoplites becomes the starting player for the next round. This continues until one player has gained five victory points and may crown itself as the winner.
Verdict
Orichalcum is a varied and colourful combination of different game elements gathered into a streamlined and intuitive gameplay experience. The different and bright components make for a user-friendly and intuitive game. The various boards, tiles and other components display the specific rules with clear graphics and symbolism. As a result, you immediately know the possible bonuses and consequences of your choices. This also makes the game easy to set up, as the game structure is clear even for players who are unfamiliar with the game.
The game combines placing and collecting tiles, an open draft of those aforementioned tiles and actions together with an engine builder where players optimise and combine their actions to be the first to win. The gameplay is simple and straightforward. Fans of, say, 4X games may find Orichalcum too simple of a gameplay experience, but thanks to its streamlined gameplay, this game doesn’t take long to play and can offer a light-hearted experience even for those players. There are only a limited number of rules, actions and tiles, but no fewer choices or possibilities because of this. This makes Orichalcum suitable for the less experienced player, frequent gaming families and also advanced players will get more than enough satisfaction from this game. Because this game is a race, it is exciting until the very end as players try to thwart each other by stealing titans or taking the much desired action cards or tiles.
What do the others think?
Accessible tactical game and divinely good. Orichalcum is the ideal game for people who dare to play a more complicated game for once.
Rick
